from the earliest days we were dancing the shadows
by tielan
Summary: Clint has always known he was broken. Before Loki, it never mattered. Living in the midst of Avengers Tower, among people who seem to see him as some kind of hero or comrade or friend instead of a dangerous man, an enemy, and a traitor, it matters.


**from the earliest days we were dancing in the shadows**

Clint always knew he was broken.

Before Loki it never mattered.

Living in the midst of Avengers Tower, among people who seem to see him as some kind of hero or comrade or _friend_ instead of a dangerous man, an enemy, and a traitor, it matters.

It matters when his dreams are full of the Tesseract's blue glow, and his nightmares are full of the people he knows dead and dying at his hand. Fury shot full of holes and spitting blood, the gleam in his eyes dying by slow degrees; Hill's wrists pinned by arrows, her weapon out but impotent as life bleeds from her veins; Natasha under him, her mouth stoppered by his hand but her eyes screaming as the knife circles her throat, strokes down her breastbone and slips into her belly...

Dawn slips into Clint's room but he's not there. He's out on the balcony, perched on the railing with the morning wind off the Hudson sniffing around his ears before whirling away to play in the streets of the city.

It's cold, but Clint's always cold these days.

-oOo-

They've done the fakeout makeout before. Several times, in fact, under various forms of cover and for a variety of audiences.

Tonight's kiss is for the Italian cops - just a little too eager to chase their quarry, leaving them little choice but to play the part. A wig turns her blonde and a reversible jacket makes him preppy. He tucks himself into the niche under the bridge; she climbs onto his lap and nestles into his arms, and her nose traces across his cheek as Clint moves his lips up to her earlobe and nips it gently.

Her breath catches, and his gut heats as she arches against him - a light press of breasts and hips.

It's part playacting, part reality. It always has been.

Even from the start the chemistry was plain enough. But there are few people Natasha trusts with her life and fewer that she trusts with her body when she's not playing a part, and she's never actually indicated she wants to cross that line.

So what the lady said - or in this situation, didn't say – went. And it worked.

This time, though, Clint's hands move of their own accord, up her thighs to the curve of her buttocks, pulling her in, hips pushing against hips - not quite a grind, but close. Yet she doesn't protest, warm and heavy on his lap, her thighs splayed across his, the bare skin of her inside arms sliding soft against his neck. When his mouth turns to hers, she doesn't just open up, she slides in.

And this time Clint's mind hazes over like the smear of a thumbprint over a camera lens, blurring the image in his head - the mission they've been sent to complete, the parts they're playing, the exit plans they need to make. He drowns in sweetness, like a diabetic guzzling candy without insulin on hand, knowing the crash is coming, unable to care. Her mouth is fierce and hungry against him, and he returns every suck and nip and lick and bite.

There's no mission. There's only desire, the heat beneath his breastbone and the ache in his balls. There are no consequences, there's only the way her hands frame his throat and jaw, and the softness of her skin under his fingertips...

A spate of amused Italian breaks them apart, and for a moment Clint can't think what's going on, who's interrupted them.

Then it all rushes back as she blurts something in fluent Italian, the liquid syllables like fine whiskey off her tongue. He mumbles something dazed - a guy whose brains are presently in his pants, and dear God, they _are_ - and the cops laugh at the couple too far into petting to notice anything going past them.

They're hustled on with some good-natured ribbing, and a few crude gestures, and Tasha blushes on demand while Clint smirks and saunters and doesn't betray the way fear is clawing at his gut.

Tasha lifts her mouth to his jaw, like a girl nuzzling a lover. Yet her voice is clear and cool, no muzziness or fuzz. "That was close."

And it's all Clint can do to say, "Yeah."

Because, amidst the memories of Tasha's body under his hands, Clint also remembers the hilt of his knife against his palm.

-oOo-

That night he dreams of Tasha riding him, his hands around her waist, dragging her down onto his cock again and again until her lip is bloody and her cheeks are slick with tears.

When Clint wakes up, he's rock hard and furnace hot in the hostel sheets, and when he puts his hand to his face, his fingers come away wet.

-oOo-

He doesn't expect to be trusted after what he did for Loki, unwitting or not. Too many good people died because of the information he gave Loki, and it's blood on his account.

"You don't have to do this to yourself," Tasha tells him as they prep for the flight in to the helicarrier.

He looks at her behind the dark glasses they're both wearing against the glare of the sky and the glitter of the sun off the sea. "Yes, I do."

There are sideways glances at the memorial service, but nobody says anything out loud.

Clint can hear them thinking it, though. It's there in the false brightness, in the people who avoid him, in the way some gazes slide away from him as they speak of the dead.

And in spite of Tasha's urgings, he lets it rest like a weight on his chest, because they're right to distrust him. He _did _help Loki attack the helicarrier through the knowledge of SHIELD operations and procedures and people that Clint held in his head, and the fact that he did it under duress, unwittingly, unwillingly, doesn't change the names of the dead who are read out, one by one by length of service, from Private Sonny Tam to Agent Phil Coulson.

Clint ignores the whispers and the looks. It's all he can do. He's still an agent of SHIELD, although he and Tasha are presently 'on assignment' to the Avengers, with recall options if SHIELD needs them for a mission - like the one in Italy.

Still, he doesn't figure SHIELD particularly trusts him.

So when the Code Grey comes through - hostile takeover attempt - he's surprised to be called in – specifically, too. _Call the mews_.

"Who made the call?" He asks Tasha as they prep the bird for flight.

"Call-in code says it's Maria. Someone called Gittes is trying to take over the helicarrier."

Tom Gittes is an American supremacist - one of the many people Fury beat out to become Director of SHIELD.

"Why me?"

Tasha gives him a look, knowing what he's asking. Her answer is slightly sharp. "Why not you?"

Getting in to the helicarrier without being noticed takes flying skill (which Clint has) and hacking skill (which Tasha has), and finding the auxiliary headquarters of the SHIELD loyalists resistance takes covertcy skill and a knowledge of how Maria Hill's mind works (which both of them have).

Maria's already gone out to wreak havoc in the helicarrier, taking Cap to watch her back. They seem to be leaving an effective trail of destruction. Her instructions for Clint were simple and slightly cryptic: '_high eyes_'.

"I trust you know what that means." Agent Sharon Carter says, brows arching in question.

From the look of it, she's not the only one doubting his presence. Several of the techs are giving him sideways glances, and although nobody says as much, the agents in the room seem to think that Hill must have been out of her mind to have him called in.

Clint isn't sure that she wasn't. Isn't.

Especially when he stands in the hawk's nest of the helicarrier operations room - behind the panels that serve as sound baffles against the endless clatter and chatter of the busy space. It's a familiar place from last time there was a takeover attempt on the helicarrier - and a familiar feeling from his dreams.

This time, he has an arrow aimed at Hill's head.

But this time, he's the rescuer rather than the destroyer.

-oOo-

Maria Hill catches up with him on his way back to the shuttle. "Thanks for the rescue."

"Thanks for the chance." He put an arrow through the wrist of the man holding a gun to her head. A little less accuracy, a different intent, and the arrow would have done what the bullet was supposed to do.

He shivers in spite of himself.

"Barton." Maria stops in the middle of the corridor and is watching him with eyes that see more than she reveals and hides more than anyone knows. "Phil wouldn't want you to carry the weight of his death on your conscience. But if things were reversed, he'd do the same. Because if it doesn't have weight, it doesn't matter."

It catches on something in his chest, like a sudden stabbing pain that's agony and absolution all at once.

"We've all got dirty hands, Clint - done things we don't want to think about. But trust still has to start somewhere."

Clint says nothing - he's not sure he can speak right now - and after a moment, the Lieutenant leaves him to his thoughts.

-oOo-

There's a certain tactical cunning involved in working with Banner's Other Guy.

Hawkeye stays high and deals with the small shit, and the Hulk smashes things low down. Needles and elephants, getting the job done one buzzing, biting swarm-creature at a time.

Most onlookers stay out of the way, although some pull handguns and try to join in the fight. What they don't realise is that Hawkeye isn't shooting the swarm with his arrows. He's set the arrowheads to explode on timer with a corrosive gas that burns through the fragile wing structure. It burns the Hulk, too, but when this was brought up Banner dismissed it. "_If a bullet isn't going to do the trick, corrosive gas isn't._"

Then, too, Hawkeye isn't standing still, firing. These things may not be even vaguely humanoid, but they're not stupid. They recognise projectile weaponry and they know how to trace it back to its source.

Hawkeye manages to get two of the swarm before the third hits the nearest gunman. Then there's nothing he or the Hulk can do - he can't shoot civilians for fuck's sake, and Hulk is stomping the swarm - not an option here.

After two men scream themselves raw as the swarm eats them alive, it's mostly just them.

Later, after the cops have come and asked their questions, and the EMTs have hovered over Clint and treated the gas-seared skin on his forearms and face with something cool and gooey, he climbs into the passenger seat of the Jeep and lets a re-clothed Banner drive.

"It could have been worse."

"It could have been better, too."

"The others?"

"I spoke with Natasha. They're all alive and kicking, although Steve got bitten a few times."

"It's not as though he scars."

Bruce almost smiles. "Tony thinks Steve needs some scars for his fan club to obsess over." They all have fan clubs after the Chitauri invasion, but Steve's is the largest and the most obsessive.

"As though we don't have enough scars already," Clint mutters.

"Ah, but these would be the scars you can talk about."

"As compared to the ones we don't want to?"

A shrug is Banner's answer. "We're all of us a bit broken. Even Steve."

It's not something Clint ever really thought about in that way. Out of all of them, Steve has it together the best - the occasional moment when the man looks lost is something that you'd expect in a man seventy years out of time. But _broken_?

Something in Clint rejects that thought.

"You don't agree?"

"Call it egotistical, but I have trouble putting Captain America in the same category as someone like myself," Clint mutters. "He's a hero."

"And I'm a necessary evil." Bruce glances over, a glint in his dark eyes. "Don't get me wrong, I like Steve - his heart's in the right place. All our hearts are, or else we wouldn't be here, doing what we're doing."

"But?"

"We're the good guys now. Saving the world. Protecting Earth and helping whatever worlds out there want our help. But weapons can be used both ways. The sword's got two edges."

Clint thinks of the Tesseract's blue glow, thinks of Loki's eyes as he questioned Clint, thinks of Natasha fighting him in the cramped space of the helicarrier catwalks. "An arrow has only one end."

"But you can pull it out once it's used, turn it back on the one who sent it, right?"

_Have you ever had someone take your brain in play? _"Yeah."

"We're none of us really whole - we're missing parts that normal people have. That's why we are what we are - because we weren't whole to begin with and we compensated with...other things."

Clint's somewhere between amused and appalled at this point. "Do you want my resignation now or on your desk tomorrow morning?"

"You've missed the target entirely." Bruce smiles that almost-smile of his; the one that's a little sardonic, but still amused. "We may not be whole individually, but we don't need to be when we're a team."

-oOo-

Clint thinks about it late that night, perched on the roof of the business centre at the base of Avengers Tower, letting the wind nip at his heels and his hair, a wild thing, and free. When he was a child, standing alone among the tents and the cages in the empty dawn, Clint used to envy the wind.

_We're none of us really whole._

He wonders that he never saw it before - but then, he sees better from a distance and he's up too close, in the thick of it, in the middle.

It's not about the Avengers because he'd back any of them up anytime, in any situation, and he has.

It's not about SHIELD because he felt that moment of temptation with the arrow pointed at Maria Hill's head, then let loose the shaft at the target he wanted neutralised.

Which only leaves Natasha.

-oOo-

Clint's waiting for her when she arrives home in the last light of the day, a vodka on the bench.

Light glistens off the shot as she downs it without saying a word, leaving a sheen on her lower lip as she swallows. She sets the glass down and exhales, as though she's been holding her breath since she left four days ago.

"Welcome home."

This much is practically ritual when one of them comes back from a mission: a silent homecoming with the other waiting, a drink, and a statement. All agents have something – some small routine that they use when coming home. Phil used to call Clint and Tasha's routine 'a bourbon and sex without the sex'.

If Clint has his way, that's going to change tonight.

His heart is beating as loudly as her bootsteps across the marble floor as he reaches under his jacket and takes out his main piece – a Mark VII Desert Eagle.

Tasha's footsteps hesitate, a sudden stutter of uncertainty.

Clint looks up and meets Tasha's startled blue gaze as he uncocks the weapon, ejects the clip, and lays it down on the coffee table before him. Then he reaches for the throwing knives inside his jacket, and the blade at his hip, the knives in his boots, and his thigh piece.

Her lips press together, her face pale in the shadows.

"Clint…"

"Tasha."

He knows what he's doing and so does she. Nakedness is easy; but vulnerability? That's something else entirely.

His hands are shaking when he finally lays the last of his weapons down on the table. It's further than he's ever gone before. Even when they're hanging out, relaxed, they're armed to the teeth.

Now he's not.

Silence stretches tight between them over a point they've never reached in all the years of their partnership. Not until now.

And when she breaks the silence, she nearly breaks him. "You'd better have a good reason for this, Clint."

He doesn't flinch beneath her anger, although he wants to. "After Loki… I don't… I need to know."

"Of course I trust you!"

_That's part of the problem. _"I need to know that I can trust myself."

"And you're worrying about that now, after you've been working with the Avengers—"

"It's not the Avengers."

The line looms before Clint, impossibly sharp and impossibly thin. They never mentioned its existence, but the silent agreement was that they would be there for each other, a touchstone when the world spun awry – just not like that.

"Clint—"

"I understand if you don't want to," he says, because Tasha has to have an escape – trapping her into this would be worse than not knowing.

Clint doesn't let himself think about what happens if she says 'yes, but only this one time'. If she needs him to stay in his shadows, he'll stay there. It will be his price for the certainty of knowing he doesn't need to be fear himself around her.

Tasha descends the steps to the sunken living area and seats herself beside him, half turned to see him. "You want to be proved wrong?"

"Yes."

"Is that all this is?"

"You know it's not."

Tasha stares at his hands, at the array of weaponry he laid out for her in an undressing of his psyche, stripping away his protections one by one. She stares like a woman who doesn't know what to say. She stares like a woman who's just been given something she doesn't know how to refuse politely.

Clint lets the regret envelop him. He always knew he was broken, anyway.

Then Tasha's fingertips touch his chin, turning him her way.

"Are you sure you want this?"

"Yes." Because if Clint can't be sure of himself - if he can't trust himself with Natasha - then it doesn't matter what he does or doesn't do, whether they stay friends or drift apart. He'll have lost what really matters to him anyway.

Natasha studies him for a long moment, then leans in.

There's a moment when it's weird. They're not playacting and for some reason that changes things – their noses bump and then the angle's wrong and they don't do more than taste each other uncertainly before pulling back.

Laughter glimmers in her eyes, and Clint's mouth curves, and suddenly it's no longer weird, and Clint takes her mouth in his without hesitation, without fear.

Desire is slippery and sweet, like the slide of her lips and the feel of her skin. It teases like the trace of her fingertips under his t-shirt, and warms like the curve of her waist under his palms.

Soft breath, warm skin, cold steel, small thuds, sleek clothing, silk skin, slick flesh. There's white carpet under his knees, long fingers in his hair, and Tasha riding his tongue until her nails dig into his scalp, and he glimpses her arch in the window glass. Tasha sinks to her knees, her mouth finding his, drawing him down over her as she lies back on the carpet. And Clint sinks into her with a groan. He wants to fuck her, hard and fast, but he won't – he doesn't.

Instead, he pushes her, pushes as far as he dares, because if he's only going to have this once, it's going to _count_, and she won't be thinking, won't be calculating, won't be doing anything but feeling him in her, the blue of her eyes looking up at him through the haze of orgasm like he's damnation and salvation both and he holds back as long as he can, as long as he can endure – and he can endure a _lot…_

But "Clint," she husks, shuddering again, and he can't stop himself this time.

_Do you know what it's like to be unmade?_

Lying with Tasha's fingers tracing sweat-trails down his back, chest heaving, Clint knows.

After this unmaking, he doesn't ever want to put himself back together again.

"Satisfied?" Tasha breaks the silence for them both, her voice still raw but laced with the amusement that brushes him like a caress.

"Exhausted."

"I meant that you've been proved wrong."

_Oh, that._ Clint closes his eyes and feels the weight of the consequences settle in his belly. He pushes himself up on his elbow so he's not squashing Tasha anymore. And stops.

Around them, the floor is littered with weapons – Tasha's own assortment of things sharp and blunt. Some of them are stuck upright in the carpet and floor. Clint has a vague memory of tugging them from her, tossing them away – anywhere, he didn't care. Cold steel in his hands was passed over for warm flesh under his lips…

And Tasha watching him, brows arched in question.

"Yes." It seems like an inadequate answer in the aftermath, and he says, "I'm sorry," more because he feels he should say it than because he is.

Her fingers trace his cheek. "I'm not, you know."

Something rises in his throat, choking off words. He turns his head and kisses her palm, soft and tender and all the things they won't say.

-oOo-

It's cold in the New York morning, but Clint pulls the curtains closed again and climbs back into the bed.

Tasha rolls over and snuggles down into his arms, half-asleep and trusting, the long alabaster line of her throat vanishing into the sleep-rumpled curls of her hair.

And Clint thinks of his dreams - his nightmares - and shivers a little.

He's always known he's broken.

Now, at least, he knows he doesn't have to be whole.

**fin**


End file.
